6 pages

1. Should non-standard varieties of English be used in education?

Some educators believe that teaching students in the standard variety of their

language is beneficial as it provides a universal mode of communication.

Others believe that students are best served by education taught in their own

variety of a language, even if it is non-standard. Choose and defend a

position in this debate, making sure to explore the benefits and drawbacks of

your choice. Focus on a single non-standard variety of English (e.g. AAVE),

and evaluate specific benefits and drawbacks of your chosen position from

the perspective of both speakers of this variety and educators.

2. Is bilingual acquisition beneficial?

Some educators and other professionals believe that the simultaneous

acquisition of two languages is confusing for an infant or young child and

may delay acquisition of both languages. Others hold the view that not only

is simultaneous language acquisition not confusing, the process of learning

two languages at the same time is beneficial for the process of acquiring

both. Review research on language acquisition with particular focus on

bilingual acquisition. What are the advantages and disadvantages of early

bilingual acquisition? Which position is more compelling?

3. Is language innate or just part of general cognition?

The specific way that we acquire language is a contentious debate in the

field of linguistics. Some researchers believe that humans are born with an

innate, specialized mental module which facilitates the acquisition of

language in young children. Other researchers believe that language

acquisition occurs through general cognitive capabilities that are not

necessarily language-specific. For this topic, you may either a) Choose a

position in this debate and defend your position, or b) based on your

research into these two sides, discuss what type of argument or evidence

would be required to settle this debate in favour of either side. Whichever

approach you choose, make sure to focus on specific types of evidence,

whether they are phonological, syntactic, or otherwise, and how that

evidence bears on the larger question.

Initial resources

The following articles are good starting points for your paper. They should provide

you with some background information for each of the topics. The first two of

these articles are available on blackboard. The third is available online.

Should non-standard varieties of English be used in education

Yiakoumetti, Androula. 2007. Choice of classroom language in bidialectal

communities: to include or to exclude the dialect?, Cambridge Journal of

Education, 37(1), 51-66

Is bilingual acquisition beneficial?

Petitto, L.A, Katerelos, M., Levy, B., Gauna, K., Tetreault, K. et al. 2001.

Bilingual signed and spoken language acquisition from birth: implications for the

mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition. Journal of Child

Language, 28(2) 453-96

Is language innate or just part of general cognition?

Cowie, Fiona. 2010. Innateness and Language, The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-

language/